“I miss one bill [to] pay another.” Universal Credit and debt, debt, debt. More #foodbank interviews

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Kate B

I’ve posted below a transcript from another recorded interview with a Universal Credit recipient made at Oldham foodbank on 13 October.

I post this transcript to show you three things:

– The debts people on low incomes must pay (particularly debt imposed by welfare reform)

– The way the DWP deducts random repayment sums for DWP loans and tax credit debt from Universal Credit payments without telling people, or agreeing manageable amounts

– The fact that people are hit by so many debt demands from councils and the DWP that they give up on all of it. Which is entirely understandable. There’s no answer to any of this, unless a philanthropic someone suddenly hands over £5000+ to clear these debts.

K, the woman in this story (she didn’t want her name published) was paying the bedroom tax, rent arrears, credit card debt, a benefit overpayment she didn’t understand, working tax credit debt, a DWP social fund loan debt and council tax debt.

Said K:

“…I don’t know where it’s come from. I didn’t even know if could go back that far [the benefit overpayment demand K had received]…it’s 2008, or 2009, and that’s housing benefit overpayment… I came out of work last year and they told [me]… working tax credits, they’ve overpaid me by £1000. They’re taking out £50 a month and I can’t do nothing about it, yeah. They just took it out, so basically, altogether, what comes out of my money, what they took is £70 a month…”

And:

“Universal Credit – [it’s] really hard. I’ve got to miss one bill [to] pay another bill. Moving it [money] around… you always get letters through your door. It’s like – I don’t get paid every month until the 18th. I’ve got a court letter now in my pocket… I’ve got to go there [court] because I can’t pay my poll [sic] tax until the 18th of the month and they want it on the first.”

Trying to sort problems out with councils and the DWP on the phone, by email, or via Universal Credit’s famously useless online journals really can be impossible. God knows I’ve canvassed that.

It’s not at all unusual to hear people say things like, “fuck it. I can’t pay that. They can come and get me.”

So.

I’m not trying to write sob stories here. I’m trying to draw a picture of the chaos – the endless, unfathomable paperwork, the weird benefit payment totals and sudden deductions from benefits, the demands for money for new debts, or debts from days gone by. Continue reading →

PIP helpline officer: You must speak to me on the phone even though you are deaf

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Kate B

One of the volunteers I spoke with at Oldham foodbank on Friday was keen for me to report this story:

This volunteer had recently rung the Personal Independence Payment helpline to request an application form for Andrew, a 51-year-old man who has a profound hearing impairment. Andrew was at the foodbank on Friday.

The foodbank volunteer told the woman who answered the PIP helpline that Andrew was deaf.

Nonetheless, the officer on the PIP helpline insisted that Andrew speak to her – over the phone.

Both Andrew and the volunteer were still nonplussed by this on Friday. They were wondering why an officer on a helpline for PIP – which is meant to be a disability support benefit – would demand to speak on the phone to someone who has a serious hearing impairment?

Said the volunteer:

“One of the problems that I had: when I was sending out for a PIP form for Andrew, the woman at the other end of the phone – he [Andrew] doesn’t do text speak – she was saying, “why do[n’t] you put him on the phone?

“I was outside with him. I said, “I’m supporting this man. He is profoundly deaf…”

[The officer on the helpline said] “has he got a phone?”

“[I said], “No, because he can’t hear you.””

[The officer said] “But I’ve got to go through security [with him].”

“Ultimately, she was fine, but she didn’t have the breadth of aspect… [experience] to understand.”

——————–

I wanted to post this, because it was an example of a lack of DWP and provider training for disabled people and people with support needs that I (and many others) come across far too often.

Other examples (of the many) I’ve witnessed first-hand include a man with learning and literacy difficulties who was given an impossibly long civil service url to type into a website on a computer he couldn’t use to apply for a job he’d never get. That was at Wood Green jobcentre. He and I just sat staring as his jobcentre adviser wrote the url out:

There was the Northampton man I wrote about in detail last year who was told to leave his PIP face-to-face assessment. He’d become angry and upset – he couldn’t cope with the pressure of the face-to-face assessment on account of his Asperger’s and mental health problems. No adjustments were made for him at that point. He was sent this Failure to Comply letter.

Last week, I posted a video I made of a woman with learning and literacy difficulties being told to leave Kilburn jobcentre when she attempted to drop in a sick note.

There is an extraordinary lack of expertise at times.

Redundancy, DWP debt deductions and shambolic DWP bureaucracy: more interviews from foodbanks

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Kate B

On Friday, I recorded three long interviews with people who came in to Oldham foodbank for food parcels: Andrew, 51, Annemarie, 41 (both surnames withheld for these articles) and a woman who spoke at length about her problems with Universal Credit, but did not want to give her name.

I’ve posted the transcript from the interview with Andrew below.

I’ll post the other two this week when I’ve transcribed them.

Common points in all three interviews:

All three people were having money deducted by the DWP directly from their benefits for debts they disputed. This is so common now that it is standard. People run out of money because debt deductions at source mean they never get a full benefit payment. They never get close to breaking even each month and so can never fix financial problems. The DWP deducts money from benefits for social fund loans people insist they’ve paid back, benefit overpayments people say they don’t owe, and, increasingly, tax credit debts which the DWP has inherited from the HMRC and now aggressively claws back from Universal Credit claimants without warning.

All three people had also struggled mightily to navigate the DWP’s complex bureaucracy.

You’ll see examples of both problems in Andrew’s story (the interview transcript is at the end of this post):

Andrew, 51, had a severe hearing impairment. He’d spent the last 17 years of his working life on the production line and then as a floor manager in Parks Bakery (I think he said Parks. His speech was clear in places and less so in others. He read lips well. I wrote out some words as we went along).

Andrew was made redundant about five years ago. It seemed that was when the problems took off – another common story. Redundancy marks the start of the downward spiral for many people. This is hardly surprising. You’re dreaming if you think it’ll be different for you [unless you are well off, of course]. Andrew said he began to struggle with depression and drink, as people do when the work goes and they’re older, disabled and living in an area where jobs are scarce. Returning to solvency and good times in these situations is not quite the slamdunk that welfare reformers would have you believe.

Andrew was now “living off my overdraft.”

He was a good bloke to hang out with – wry. He said that his immediate problem was getting the DWP to understand that he didn’t have the several grand in savings that the DWP kept insisting he had. He said that trying to get this across to the DWP was a challenge nobody had yet been equal to. He kept rolling his eyes as he told the story. He said that he was losing about £14 from each of his Employment and Support Allowance payments in deductions for overpayments. You’ll see in the transcript below that he talked about different figures at different points. That is common, too. People struggle to keep up with the different amounts they’re paid and the varying deductions and costs, especially if they have support needs.

“…yeah [if only]… I’ve been living on my overdraft for the past five years.” He showed me the letter the DWP had sent about the money, several months’ worth of bank statements which showed his overdraft and account-draining bank charges and a Freepost envelope for sending the bank statements to the DWP. He’d been to the jobcentre with the papers. He said the woman he saw at the jobcentre made the changes to his savings information on a computer (“I can’t use it [computers]), but that something had obviously gone wrong, because the DWP had sent this new letter.

“I’ve already been down jobcentre and they did it online and that’s not got through.”

Andrew had also experienced problems with his Personal Independence Payment application.

A foodbank volunteer stopped at our table to tell me that she’d rung the PIP helpline to arrange application forms for Andrew – and got an officer who kept insisting on speaking to Andrew on the phone even though he can’t hear.

The foodbank volunteer said:

“When I was sending out for a PIP form for Andrew, the woman at the other end of the phone – he doesn’t do text speak – she was saying, “why do[n’t] you put him on the phone?”… I said, “I’m supporting this man. He is profoundly deaf… [She said] “has he got a phone?” [I’m like] “No, because he can’t hear you.” Ultimately, she was fine, but she didn’t have the breadth of aspect… [experience] to understand.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: benefit application and management systems are atrocious. It is shocking to know that these are the systems that people in the greatest need must deal with.

Often they can’t.

Here’s the transcript. It has been edited in parts.

Andrew, 13 October 2017, Oldham foodbank:

“They [the DWP] said I had this [amount of savings] in my bank account. They been knocking me money down. They’ve been taking… they said I had this in me bank account…[Andrew showed me his bank statements and the letter the DWP had sent him]. They’re going back a long time…they’ve only [gone and] done it twice. It were doing me head in. My bank’s overdrawn. I’ve been living on my overdraft for the past five years… that’s the overdraft…

I’ll post it, yeah. I have to post it to them….I’ve already been down jobcentre and they did it online and that’s not got through.

A woman did it down there for me [made the changes to Andrew’s savings record on his benefits account at the jobcentre] because I can’t use it [computers] and I’ve already done it twice. You can’t get it down at jobcentre…[unclear]

Continue reading →

Video: Learning and literacy difficulties and need to drop a sick note to the jobcentre? Too bad. You’re banned. Get out

Posted on October 10, 2017 by Kate B

Here’s one you should see: a recent* video which shows a woman with learning and literacy difficulties being told to Get Out of Kilburn jobcentre – even though she needed to drop off an all-important sick note at the jobcentre.

I post this to show you how unpleasant things can be at these places for long-term unemployed people who have support needs. People in these situations really are at the bottom of the pile. They have no power and absolutely no means of challenging the DWP.

I hate that.

The woman, Linda (name changed. I’ve written about her many times) is in her 50s. The day I took the video, Linda, as I say, needed the jobcentre to accept a sick note she had from her doctor. She risked sanctions if the jobcentre did not accept the note.

Nonetheless, the jobcentre adviser we saw refused to take the sick note.

That was because Linda was serving a ban from Kilburn jobcentre for losing her temper through sheer frustration and upset. Aggressive outbursts from people in Linda’s situation are inevitable.

We’ll get to that.

The story:

Linda has signed on at Kilburn jobcentre for years. They know her well there – probably too well, in the sense that familiarity in these places can breed contempt. Linda’s a permanent fixture. She’s a target for the DWP’s institutional contempt because of that. I’ve seen people act as though she’s annoyingly underfoot. Like a lot of older, long-term unemployed people with learning difficulties and deteriorating health (Linda’s had blood clots and deep vein thrombosis, and can’t walk far) Linda is very unlikely to find work. She’s stuck in the benefits system at a time when contempt for people who rely on that system is rife.

She is perfectly aware of that contempt. She responds in kind.

Which leads us to the ban.

Earlier this year, Linda was banned from the jobcentre for losing her temper and and raging at staff. I’ve spoken to an eyewitness. Linda was out of control and screamed the place down. Apparently, this started when a security guard said something to her. Continue reading →

So, Gauke – what about the many people who need Universal Credit, but can’t use computers or online systems at all?

Posted on October 3, 2017 by Kate B

While we’re on the subject of Universal Credit:

Readers of this site will know I’ve regularly uploaded stories about people with learning and literacy difficulties, and other access issues, who are not able to use computers. It’s an issue noted by many. I’m working on another example of such a situation for a Universal Credit applicant at the moment.

The fact is that people in these situations will be utterly excluded from Universal Credit without support to apply and to manage their accounts.

Support is difficult to find – and can be almost impossible to find in some parts of the country (I know this, because I’ve tried). Planned jobcentre closures around the country will exclude people with access issues even further.

Perhaps Mr Gauke can expand on his plans there.

Universal Credit advance payments fix nothing. They’re just loans – and ANOTHER debt for people who have no money

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Kate B

Getting very sick of Tory claims that Universal Credit advance payments solve the serious financial problems caused by the mandatory six weeks (it’s often longer) that people must wait for their first Universal Credit payment. This claim is a total fudge.

Let’s say this loud and clear: Universal Credit advance payments are LOANS. They must be repaid (you can read full details of the Universal Credit advance payment system on the CAB site). They’re not much-needed extras. They’re advances on people’s Universal Credit money and must be repaid out of people’s benefits.

That means that the DWP claws the money back when people’s Universal Credit claims are up and running. The DWP deducts advance payment loan money from people’s benefits at source. Those deductions mean that for months, people who were already in hardship (people who receive advance payments are in hardship by definition) get a smaller Universal Credit payment than they were expecting.

I’ve posted an example at the top of this article – an advance payment deduction notice from the Universal Credit journal of a Croydon/Colchester claimant I wrote about yesterday.

There’s another issue. The DWP makes mistakes with repayment totals – mistakes which cause people a great deal of stress and which they must try and sort out using Universal Credit’s unreliable online systems. For example: the woman who is paying back the advance payment in the notice above got a notice in her Universal Credit journal this year which said the DWP would deduct £528 that month. You can imagine how she felt when she saw that notice in her online account. She wasn’t even liable for payments listed in the notice:

When this sort of thing happens, people must spend ages on the phone to the DWP and online trying to sort the problem out – and trying to make sure, in this case, that the Universal Credit payment that month wasn’t £528 short. That deduction would have been a disaster. People who struggle to use online systems have no chance at all when these many mistakes happen. I’ve written in detail about problems JSA and Income Support claimants had and still have with DWP loan deductions. Some deductions put people in real hardship.

Let’s not forget either that often people who need advance Universal Credit payments already have other debts because of extra costs heaped on them by welfare reform – council tax debts and court costs, rent arrears and plenty more. The young woman in yesterday’s article had serious council tax and court debts, and tax credit repayment demands in the past two years. A deduction for a Universal Credit advance payment loan quickly becomes just another debt problem. Advance payments don’t solve problems caused by that six (and more) weeks that Universal Credit claimants must endure with no money.

All a Universal Credit advance payment does is push shortfall problems back for a short time – ie, until after Tory party conference is over and attention has moved from Universal Credit.

Does my head in, this. Just pay people their Universal Credit entitlement from the day they make their claim and be done with it. Any other so-called “fix” is garbage.

Is there too much focus on student loans, credit cards and other “middle class” debt?

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Kate B

A few thoughts on Labour’s plans to cap credit card interest payments to ease card debt:

I feel that the debt troubles of a particular group of people are being sidelined in the recent flurry of mainstream news stories about debt (have written about this in detail in recent times)

We’re hearing a great deal in the mainstream about student loans and student debt, and about credit card and car payment debt – debt that particularly concerns the middle and voting classes, as people on twitter have observed.

We’re hearing a lot less about the debts that are crushing people who are most marginalised:

Examples of those debts and costs:

– The council tax debt and outrageous court costs that are added to debts when people are summonsed to court for council tax non-payment

– The bailiff costs that rise by tens and hundreds of pounds each time a bailiff hammers on a door to demand council tax and other debt repayments

– The impossible landlord demands for rent shortfall money when housing benefit or Universal Credit don’t cover escalating rents

– The exorbitant court charges people must pay when eviction battles go to court (£355 for a woman on Income Support in this example).

– The DWP deductions from benefits for loans and advance payments that people must request to cover costs, Universal Credit start delays and all the rest.

– The sudden loss of income when Employment and Support Allowance recipients are found fit for work and told their ESA payments will stop.

Student loan debt and credit card debt are of course important topics. They’re not exclusive to the middle and/or voting classes. They just affect people who have a voice and use it. My point is that the crushing council tax demands, rent shortfall problems, benefit stops and delays, and court costs that keep the poorest people in debt are equally important. Payday loan regulation hardly addresses those problems.

If we’re going to talk about devastating debt which destroys lives, let’s include everyone in the discussion. Policy must be written for people who are the most marginalised, as well as people who are likely to vote. Such policy should be promoted and publicised as enthusiastically as any call for a card interest cap.

Throwing marginalised people a lifeline is not “being soft on welfare,” you know. It’s being humane – and fiscally responsible, I would have thought.

It’s disgusting that people most in need are excluded from help by useless benefits application systems

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Kate B

And I’m back…with another example of the flawed and downright nonsensical systems people must use to apply for benefits.

This post is about an application for Personal Independence Payment. What a drawn-out mess this one has been:

Regular readers will know that I’ve written several articles this year about Paul, an Oldham man in his 60s. Paul has a heart condition and a defibrillator implant. He has problems with pain and walking, and depression.

Paul is also homeless – or as near to homeless as people can be without actually sleeping on the street. When we first met this year, Paul was living in a tiny, grotty, falling-apart static caravan on an Oldham campsite. First Choice Homes, the local homelessness office, considered Paul adequately housed in that caravan. More recently, Paul’s been living in temporary hotel accommodation. He was moved, because a man living on the caravan site threatened him. I mention Paul’s housing situation, because unstable, insecure housing has a real bearing on people’s attempts to claim benefits. We’ll get to that.

Let’s look at the dreadful PIP application “system” as Paul has experienced it. A person of Paul’s age and with his health and housing problems should NOT have to struggle as he has to get support. Nonetheless, this often-hopeless PIP application system is considered adequate for sick and disabled people who are most in need. This has to change. Now.

Until the end of last year, Paul received Disability Living Allowance. In December 2016, the DWP sent Paul a letter to say his DLA would end (DLA is being phased out and pretty much everyone will have their DLA claim closed and have to apply for PIP). Paul had to apply for the new Personal Independence Payment if he still wanted disability support.

Applying for PIP meant Paul had to take these steps:

– Request an application form

– Gather medical certificates and doctors’ letters to support his application

– Attend a face-to-face assessment to explain to an assessor why he should receive PIP.

You may think these steps were/are straightforward. They are not.

Paul experienced four major problems with his application:

– The DWP didn’t know which papers it had received from him. This confused and concerned Paul greatly, because he’d posted sensitive medical information

– Paul wasn’t sent a date and time for a face-to-face assessment. He says he was never told that an assessment date had been set. The DWP closed his claim for missing the face-to-face appointment he didn’t know about. Paul was denied PIP and had to start his application again. He had no recourse. (I’ve been in touch with another person who had a similar experience. John Pring at Disability News Service has reported on this problem in detail).

– A second face-to-face appointment for the second claim was cancelled at the last minute. This set Paul’s application back another fortnight.

– Texts that Paul received from the DWP made absolutely no sense. Two texts said the DWP hadn’t received Paul’s application forms – forms he’d sent. Shortly after those texts arrived (half-an-hour after in one case), Paul received texts which said the DWP actually HAD received the forms. I’ve seen these texts. This “no, we haven’t received your sensitive information – oh, hang on, yes, we have,” stuff really upsets people who must trust these bureaucracies with sensitive medical details. Continue reading →

Student debt dominates debate – but where’s the political sympathy for people crushed by council tax debt, DWP loans, rent arrears and sanctions debt?

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Kate B

I have an article on the debts people owe in austerity at politics.co.uk today:

Student debt dominates headlines – but why don’t we hear arguments for writing off debt for people who austerity has crushed with council tax charges, DWP loan repayments, sanctioned benefits, rent arrears, court fines and all the rest? Where’s the political sympathy for writing off debt for these people? Where are the headlines for that?

“Staying housed, battling bailiffs, fighting councils for housing, sorting out benefit sanctions and paying rent arrears, fines and DWP loans really is a full time job. Benefits are constantly threatened and sanctioned by the DWP. Housing benefit and paying rent becomes a mess when people shift their claims to Universal Credit. People end up with rent arrears because their local housing allowance doesn’t cover their private sector rent. They are charged court costs for eviction and struggle to get council help for a new place… People are paying council tax arrears. They’re paying back loans to the DWP which go on and on. The letters and demands pour through the door. They’re in hock to the state and its providers forever. That’s the point. The system isn’t helping these people. It owns them. They can’t get out, because they’re not allowed out. It’s time that the political class stopped insisting they try.”

Read the rest here.

Why does it take the DWP so long to process sick notes? Why must people put up with such useless systems?

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Kate B

Feel free to email your views and experiences on this if you don’t want to leave a comment. I know many of you have canvassed this topic in recent times:

In the past fortnight, I’ve called the DWP’s 0345 600 0723 Universal Credit line twice to ask about the best place to send the sick notes (DWP calls them fit notes I think) which excuse benefit claimants from jobsearch activities. Sick notes are crucial when a Universal Credit claimant is sick or injured. They explain why people can’t work or carry out jobsearch activities. Benefits can be sanctioned if people miss job activities without a medical note.

Problem is this. People raise concerns with me about sick notes and other communications to the DWP not being properly recorded, or taking ages to process, or being processed out of order, or apparently not even arriving when posted to the DWP. God knows what’s going on with all of this. You should see the masses of paperwork that goes to and from the DWP and benefit claimants. Keeping track is a nightmare.

Last week, I called the DWP after speaking to a volunteer at South Chadderton foodbank. Her 40-year-old son had his Universal Credit sanctioned in June. He’d been about to start a warehouse job in May when he broke his wrist. His sick note from his doctor should have excused him from the placement and jobsearch activities. Something went wrong. He was sanctioned. His mother wondered if there’d been a problem with the processing of his sick note. Nobody was sure at the time of interview. The DWP still hadn’t sent a letter explaining the reasons for the sanction. People were still trying to guess what had happened.

Because I’d spoke to this woman and because others have raised this issue, I decided to call the Universal Credit line to ask general questions about the best place to send sick notes. I especially wanted to know if people everywhere could drop their sick notes in at their jobcentres, or if they should send them in to the DWP’s Freepost address.

Four points emerged from those phone calls (one made on 14 July and the other on 17 July). All four were cause for concern, so I’m putting them here. Feel free to weigh in.

1) The DWP seems to have a sick-note processing backlog of some description, so claimants must allow time for sick notes to be processed. The officer I spoke to last Monday said that UC claimants should allow up to seven days for sick notes to be processed: “because obviously they’re [staff are] so busy.” People online report delays of ten days for DWP mail processing.

That “obviously they’re so busy,” is a line I’m sick of hearing. Why are delays in this area considered so acceptable? Why must benefit claimants always wait and wait before their information is dealt with? The people who use these so-called systems are on extremely limited incomes. Those incomes depend on the right paperwork getting to the right people IMMEDIATELY. Everything can go wrong if it doesn’t. Claimants could be sanctioned if they missed a jobsearch activity while an explanatory sick note was stuck in a pile. If there are processing delays because staff are “so busy,” someone needs to hire more staff.